Prairie Poet

Reminiscences of a life on the North Dakotah Prairies

Recent Posts

  • About October

    About October

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    There’s something rare about October

    with its honey colored air.

    It doesn’t seem to need the sun

    rather it kind of glows from inside itself

    like looking at the world through polished amber.

    There’s something rare about October.

    Coolness that defines it’s texture on my skin.

    Ripened heads of thigh high brome

    that silhouette the prairie wind

    and the aromatic tang of wood smoke

    from an open fire.

    There’s something rare about October.

    Cornstalks like yellowed phonebook pages

    rustling in the prairie breeze.

    The earthy smell

    of a furrow freshly turned.

    The roiling surf of cottonwoods

    swaying in the wind

    or the haunting call

    of a southward bound Canada Goose.

    I remember tramping cross these plains with my Dad

    prairie grass tugging at our knees.

    We thought that we were only walking our Dakotah home

    But looking back upon those times

    I think that we were actually

    learning what it means to Be.

    There’s something rare about October.

    Mac Mc Mahon

  • Winds of Winter

    Fifty rods or so west and north

    of the house

    a line of sixteen cottonwoods

    stands perimeter.

    They shed their leafy glow in winter time.

    Their naked limbs

    like bony fingers

    clawing at the wind.

    When shadows are the longest

    and the sun has gone on holiday.

    When the cold has become

    a being sentient

    and the banks of snow

    that embrace the sleeping trees

    are taller than my head.

    It is then the winds of winter

    sound through those cottonwoods

    like a distant train at speed.

    And there

    beyond that sound that ears can hear

    there’s a feeling reaches past

    that winter wind

    to the underpinnings of my soul.

  • Book Signing

    Had my first ever book signing at “Hooked on Books ” in downtown Colorado Springs on April 30, 2022. Nice time , good turnout. This is the email ad sent out by the store before the event.

    POETRY EVENT:
    Hear a Poet with Heart

    Colorado Poet
    Dennis McMahon

    Reading & Signing
    A Place Called Alice
    (Alice, is the town in North Dakota, where Dennis grew up)
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    Here at Hooked on Books, 1 to 3 pm Saturday April 30,
    Bring your friends!
    With light refreshments

    From his title poem; “A Journey of No Distance”

    Though I am alone and far from there
    I have them with me still those things I love.
    The winter nights
    The Northern lights
    Summer’s yellow green
    The amber gold of fall
    And quiet
    Quiet so quiet almost I feel
    I’m an interloper in a foreign land—

    When the crystal shard of a Meadowlark at song
    Serves it seems
    Only to defy the silence
    When the haunting call of an austral bound Canada Goose
    Vibrates the very ashes of my bones. . .

    Come to hear Dennis sharing his poetry and signing his book,
    A Place Called Alice,
    Saturday, April 30 at 1 to 3 pm
    Bring your family and friends

    Thank you,

    Hooked on Books

  • A Place Called Alice

    Well, it finally happened , after much frustration and many delays, my book of poetry ” A Place Called Alice ” is available on Apple Books , Amazon , and Barnes & Noble

  • Greasy Grass Country

    North Dakota Prairie Hills

    In the tongue of the Dakotah
    it is the country of the grass.
    The grass that’s greasy in the wind
    For the way it slips and swirls
    whispers in the breeze
    catches light like waves
    in a sea of opalescent green
    It isn’t just the wind
    there’s a feeling too that’s there
    of a majesty beneath the sound
    that slips within my soul.
    I ask myself sometimes
    is it an echo
    of when the world came first to be?
    A kind of grace note maybe?
    On an instrument played by God
    when he holds his finger on the key
    plays a note so low it almost isn’t there.
    I wonder too if others hear it
    or is it only me?
    I wish that I
    could climb inside that note somehow
    feel the world from there.
    It is the elemental essence that I feel I think.

    A reminder

    that spirit never sleeps
    In the country of the grass
    that’s greasy in the wind

  • Autumn Air

    When the sun is past midway
    in it’s austral journey
    and it’s starting to appear
    a little watered to the eye.
    When the temperatures at night
    drop well below the freezing mark
    and those damn mosquitoes
    have long since given up the fight.
    When I’m walking through a shelter belt
    and fallen leaves
    boil up around my feet
    and Alice Slough is bivouac
    to a hundred thousand ducks and geese.
    It’s then the golden days of summer
    surrender to the polished amber of the fall.
    It’s the air I think,
    mostly it’s the air.
    Looking at the world
    through the crystal Autumn air.

  • Sundogs

    Sundogs

    I wonder how they got that name

    peacock tails I think

    would be closer to the truth of it.

    You never see them in the summertime

    only on those high sky winter days

    are the rainbows there.

    I used to think when I was young

    that they’re a kind of Northern Light 

    encircling the sun

    or faery rings

    planted by some winter sprite…

    It’s when the air’s so cold 

    it flays the skin from my face.

    So cold and still

    I feel a need to whisper

    that to break the silence 

    would be somehow seen a sin.

    It’s then the sundogs 

    silently erupt and effervesce

    in their kaleidoscopic dance of hues 

    around a winter sun